Slither
by arctique48
Summary: In times of war people live, breath and think in negatives. Written for the Valentine's Day Dramione Fic Exchange.


**Disclaimer: S'not mine. **

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"_I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving."_  
Kurtz - Apocalypse Now

* * *

She's running. Running fast with an unknown destination. Harry's hand pulls her through the night, through trees and darkened confusion when somewhere nearby a battle rages.

_He is running too, but it is a far off place with other people. He doesn't burn the houses any more, just stands guard claiming his reflexes will be needed. The Dark Lord may see through it but he says nothing and Draco will kill but only when he has to, because anything more and he risks her eyes breaking like mirrors and he doesn't think he could take that._

A flash of red and she sees rather than feels the impact. Clouds of dust rise up to meet her and she thinks she's falling further than it takes to reach the ground. But it doesn't last long and a hand drags her to her feet and suddenly they're running again… and he might think of her but on nights like those the masks all look the same and she thinks of nothing but survival, hoping against hope it's not her turn to die.

_There are screams tonight, but there are always screams and he's so unreasonably glad that they don't wear masks. His opposition make his job so much easier – he' knocks them down safe in the knowledge she isn't there and will neither see nor be harmed. He gets sentimental sometimes._

Weapon in hand. The blood of many soaked in her clothes, her skin, her flesh. She wants out and she wants it so bad she screams. But the scream's a curse, a curse of red flame springing from wood to flesh and knocking the strength out of another faceless enemy. Magic is carnal, responding to instinct above reason, it kills when you wish nothing more than to cry. She has not the insight of Dumbledore or even Harry. She has the power and the bravery, but not the stomach for death. Sacrifice is not something she can accept without a fight, and fight she does. On and on and the spells fall like hellfire from the darkness. She is afraid.

_He's crying again. He wishes it wouldn't happen and he wishes more that it wouldn't happen _now_. Not with their eyes all on him and crucio lacing flames in his blood. _

She doesn't read the paper anymore. She saw his name once and it made her stomach lurch and eyes sting. It shouldn't have, but so much happens these days that's out of place. She wishes it could be possible to stop fighting, but it's not that simple and sometimes you _have_ to kill. Sometimes there's no other way out.

* * *

She's scared she's going to die. He can see it in her eyes.

They sit on opposite sides of the room and he watches her as she watches him and they both pretend they don't understand what they're seeing. But it's clear. Clear as the blood on the cuff of her white shirt and the black oozing mess that seeps beneath his collar.

This war was inevitable. Her role in it has been set in stone since the day Harry Potter helped save her eleven year old skin. And yet she still cried when it became reality. She still sobbed and shook and threw things after she took her first life.

You see, Hermione Granger was never meant for war. He'd always had a vague inkling of it, in the way she stayed out of fights, the way she used words over actions, the way she only slapped him _once _in their entire lives together and at each other's throats, but now; now he is certain.

Her hands shake as she lifts her wand, as though the memory of the last spell it cast is ready to jump up and rip her soul away. He thinks that's what she's afraid of. The ripping soul and the innocence forever lost. _(He tells her that only happens in cold blood. He tells her self defence will do nothing. He tells her she's safe so long as she doesn't forget herself and she looks at him with raised brows and he thinks he might have said something out of character. But then she smiles and he's not sure if he cares what other people will think_.)

She lifts her wand and conjures a fire to the grate. Red flame on black and they both sigh. It's like a ritual.

* * *

They're sitting in the dark. Alone together in a room, its location insignificant in her mind. She sits and watches him and hopes against hope that this will all work out.

Cat's eyes in the dark and he doesn't say a word. And neither does she. There is still so much left to lose so neither of them react.

The fire burns on and she hugs her aching self.

How long since this became a War? She wonders. War with a capital 'W'. Because she'd seen them before, the wars that flashed across her parent's TV screens (at eight years old) when she objected and wrote letters to the Prime Minister to tell him that fighting and killing were bad. She wrote on lilac paper with teddy bears in the corner that killing people was not good and his problems would not be solved by people dying. Her mother had been proud, her little girl, so righteous and desperate to make a difference. She let her send the letter (lilac envelope – 10 Downing Street) and took her swimming when they received no reply.

But since then things have changed. She has changed. She is no longer an eight-year-old girl with lilac paper and the knowledge that killing is wrong. (Is it wrong? A means to an end. It keeps you alive.) The war is no longer based away from home, fighting other people's battles – irrelevant and so confusing. Now the war is her War and she fights and she kills even though it is bad and solves little. She fights and she kills because it will keep her and her friends alive. She fights and she kills because this War is here. It is everywhere.

Everywhere. The streets of London, the corridors of Hogwarts. The War is within her very head. And here, in this room it opens a void between the two of them and all she can do is watch him and know he's watching back.

So she fights and kills and buries the guilt because if she didn't it would get her killed and she isn't ready to die yet. And that is what it's all about. She doesn't want to know death. She doesn't want to die.

And looking across the room neither does he. He doesn't want to die so he fights and kills. And there is fear but also desperation and she knows that he is as human as she. They are both human and should be worthless but they have the power to take lives and they use it because… Because it might stop other using it on them. Shallow and painful.

She still fights for a cause but it has become blurred. She fights to save lives but at some point her own life joined that list… and now she fights to save herself as much as anyone else. And if that lowers her to the levels of Draco Malfoy, then so be it. Because she doesn't want to be alone any more than she wants to die.

* * *

_The man pins him to the floor, unarmed – he's more vulnerable and afraid than he ever thought he'd be able to feel and his fingers scrabble for the reassuring warmth of wood in his palm. A hiss of pain and his back arches. His hand grasps the wand. _

There are times when she feels so trapped. There are times when she's so grateful to have him there to cry on. Sometimes she hates him and sometimes she looks and sees herself die in the dusty mirror that hangs on the wall. She wasn't built to hate and kill and fear. But then, who was?

_It leaves his lips before there's even time to think. A burst of green and he feels the other man's death through the very marrow of his bones. He feels it surge and take with it a small part of him. But it does that every time and he's beginning to gain immunity to the sickness of guilt. (_Avada Kedavra.) _It all happens before his lips even close in wake of those syllables. _

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He arrives this time to the sound of running water. Swinging shut the door he watches the scene unfold before him.

She's got her back to him, shaking and he feels rather than smells the taste of blood in the air. Her wand is abandoned on the table and she mutters to herself, deranged and wavering past the brink of tears.

"The stains just won't leave. Blood in water. Blood is water. Blood is life and what's life without water? Never get it out. War for blood and blood for war and death in the water swirling and swirling and we're all going to die. I killed someone again, Draco." Suddenly her hands are still and she's looking straight at the wall as the water runs on, blood long since washed away.

He stands behind her. At a loss as to what to do. His fingers clasp the back of a chair and he watches her tremble, feeling magic writhing about her as she stands frozen. And still the water runs.

"I killed him and watched him fall to the floor. No," she staggers, not physically but he can feel it in her words. She is breaking. "There was no light. No burst of green energy. No dark magic ripping his soul away cleanly – it was like a slow trickle." She shakes her head. "He just clutched his chest, clawing like he was in more pain than I can even imagine." She gasps, knuckles white, "He looked at me and tried to speak, but he couldn't form words. Just stared and staggered and his eyes turned black and died." A deep breath, shoulders heaving, "Just died." A stuttered laugh and she turns around, water gushing behind her. "I told him I was sorry, Draco."

Her face is so serious and so haunted he wants to shake her and kick her back two years to when there was no war and no death and Hermione Granger spent her days in the library not the battlefield.

"I told him I was sorry and it was a lie." Her legs buckle and she's on the floor, hugging the table leg and sobbing silently.

His fingers clench and unclench and he's reminded so much of himself in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Jaw set he moves towards her, only to falter mid step with brow creased. Then he stands and watches her for a moment more before turning on heal and snapping the door shut behind him.

Alone. She is left with nothing but the running water as it sounds so much like blood pouring from a faceless man's heart. Nothing but muted sobs and her nails claw harder into the wood.

* * *

_He's trying to chase but he can't feel his legs. They sting and he keeps stumbling – tripping over tree roots and grazing his knees._

It all happened at once. A floorboard creaking, rustle of fabric as a wand arm raised, simultaneous gasps as the good guys jumped for their wands - but they were too late. As she fumbled there was an almighty flash of green light and she was left frozen, mouth open to scream as the magic rushed over her, engulfing the room and roaring in her ears. On the very brim of her consciousness a body fell.

_There are shouts and hisses and a burst of green and he wants to cringe. But it's not what he expected and instead a shadow of his mark leaps to the sky, He looks on and feels like an animal. Branded and lined up to die. Cattle to the slaughter._

Rushing sound of sand pouring through an hourglass, magnified a hundred thousand times until it wracked her very bones with the intensity. Spinning around she half expected to find herself dead, to see the room blown to pieces and blood tattooed into the walls. But it didn't look any different. Her wand had risen on instinct and was pointing at the doorframe but there was nothing there. Nothing but swirling dust, dancing in the orange light spewing forth from the window. Nothing at all but on the floor a man lay dead.

_He's on his knees. He's grateful for that sometimes. Not worthy to look on the face of his Master and it's a gift. He doesn't think he could stand that sight. Not now or ever. It's like seeing Hell with the certainty that if you're not in it already you will be. Maybe that's the reason they're all so scared of death._

They leave the room and the battle is closing outside. The shouts tune out and she watches the scene, a silent movie, black and white is all she sees. They stand in the shadows… Regrouping? Cornered? She, Harry and Ron bathed in light, the sparks of broken electricity and the cold glow of lit wands. Unromantic and stark. Good and evil. The aurors have them in bonds but they fight still – like animals. (But they claim superiority, they claim humanity and she watches them tear and claw like caged dogs.) Nothing about this War makes sense.

* * *

She's sitting on the stairs in her parent's house.

Her dad is out, the car left half an hour ago, and her mother is visiting an old friend somewhere, somewhere far away and she hopes that makes her safe.

She's alone.

Alone to think and replay hours that should never have happened over in her head. Alone to dwell on what she wishes with all her heart could in the past.

But it's not. And she finds it more difficult with every day to imagine it being so. It's real and it's now and for all her tears and wide-eyed promises made to a diminishing reflection she knows it's not going to stop any time soon. She can't afford it to,

It wasn't meant to happen like this. Is was meant to happen the way it does in the books – those stories she read as a child where the heroine rides off into the sunset with the hero and they live happily ever after in a beautiful castle with sun, trees and gleaming white horses. That's how it should be. But then she thinks again and remembers that the witches never got their happily ever after. And in wizard stories neither do the muggles. So where does that leave her? Somewhere in between the two? Because there's no immunity. Not in times like these. In times of war people live, breathe and think in negatives.

The house is dark and so is she, dressed in a black robes she once bought for Halloween. Now they're worn more regularly for funerals and that thought alone is enough to bring the tears to surface.

He tells her she's being silly. He tells her he doesn't want to hear her being like that. He tells her he won't see her again if she thinks those things and makes those promises. He tells her he doesn't want to see her cry.

She doesn't believe him sometimes. And maybe that's why she goes back. To prove him wrong and make him see sense and convert him or something else heroic. _(Not because she needs him. Not because she's to afraid to wash the blood and feel the memories alone.)_

He'll be waiting for her. She knows that.

He may have walked away last time but he does that so she doesn't worry. He too likes to think he has control over something (_anything at all_) in this war. He likes to think that he _can_ walk away. And he can. He's just not very good at stopping himself coming back.

* * *

He sits but the hearth but doesn't light the fire.

That's her job.

And she's not here.

_(He gets scared sometimes. Unreasonably scared that she died alone somewhere and he'll never know because who'd tell him? Who'd think that he deserved the right to care? And he does care. He tries not to but nothing ever works. He might leave but he always comes back and she knows it. Always back. On his knees and begging for mercy in every way except with words. He hates to admit he needs her.)_

He stares at the blackened wood and imagines the sound of her footsteps but all too soon it's the sound of her screams and he has to kick something or he'll cry. He cries far more than he should do.

Warriors. That's what they call themselves. Like knights with bright swords, off to slay dragons and rescue princesses. But that's Potter's job and he'll never be anything more than the enemy so he sits and feels sorry for himself and hopes she'll come back some time soon.

* * *

She looks in the mirror. Splashing her face and ignoring the shadows under her eyes. She feels like a corpse, fumbling through life like it doesn't belong and all the while she thinks of where she wants to be. Away from here with company she shouldn't crave.

She's reminded oddly of that month after the Department of Mysteries and the look on Professor Lupin's face whenever Sirius Black was mentioned. She's knows he's with Tonks and she knows she's officially still with Ron but she also knows that there's something lingering in both of them – the wanting of something they cannot have. And sometimes she can't help but envy Lupin, because at least his choice is already made for him. There's no following Sirius but the only thing stopping her following Draco is her guilt.

And she's learning fast that guilt is so easily forgotten when you do the deed enough. The memories may never leave her but the spells are getting easier to cast (_and some part of her isn't even sure if that's a bad thing)._

She knows she shouldn't but she gathers up her wand and blocks out the faces of her friends and apparates to the room with the fire and the boy shouldn't want.

And his eyes are bloodshot too.

There are shadows and fear and the guilt is fading but he is sparing with death because of her and for some reason that means more than any flowers and chocolates and romance. Somehow that makes her cling to him like he is her innocence reborn (when he's perhaps further from it than anyone) and in the distortion of her tears and apologies she almost imagines that she's safe. And the feeling's nice.

And that's why they keep coming back.

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**_You are writing for: _  
**_lesca _

**_Side pairing_**_: Sirius/Remus (implied) _  
**_Rating_**_: no preference _  
**_Period_**_: post-HBP, AU-ish if necessary _  
**_Includes_**  
_1) WAR! (and associated trauma + distortion of morals/goals/principles. think Tim O'Brien & "The Things They Carried," sorta.) _  
_2) marked!Draco _  
_3) grudging respect (though Ronniekins can be as PMS-y as you want) _  
_4) theme/image/prompt: blood in the water _  
**_Tone_**_: dark. maybe dark humor, but dark is just fine too. _  
**_Ending_**_: no preference_

**AN:** This was so not a Valentine's fic. And **Eek!** I totally forgot number 3 until right this minute. I'm sorry lesca!

**_After Valentine's Day '06, check TDFE's profile page for a list of who wrote which stories._**

**Happy Valentine's Day!**


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